Confinement
by Lucifelle
Summary: ON HIATUS Breaking a human being is easy. Bane knows better than anyone that the best way to torture the soul of a man is by breaking members of his family. Charlotte is the unfortunate young woman who is subject to the man's terrors because she stands in the way of a politician's insanity. Rated M for torture, stockholm syndrome, profanity and non-consensual sex. AU, Bane/OC
1. Prologue

**Warnings for this chapter: **This chapter is rated **T **for implied abuse and non-graphic violence.

**Warnings for this story: **This story is rated **M **for graphic torture and violence, graphic non-consensual and consensual sex acts, as well as profane language.

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**Please note that the majority of this story is written in the first person, and in a very different style than the prologue. This chapter was to "set the scene," if you will, while the rest will be written from the perspective of Charlotte, in a more sporadic and personal style.**

**I hope that you enjoy the first segment. Feedback is, of course, greatly appreciated.**

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_Prologue_

"Where are you off to? Stand still!" various voices whispered to Charlotte, who had no idea where she was to go. The oldest of the men would sometimes come up, touch her and ask others' advice about pleasing the nameless yet omniscient presence that seemed to lurk indefinitely in all of their minds. The youngest was apt to mutter quietly as he walked solemnly through the grime of the sewer; he was always afraid of being in the others' way, and Charlotte could not help to wonder why.

These men were subordinates, of this she was sure. The way that they seemed to be circled in an invisible grasp as they walked, never daring to ask for advice or help, reminded her of young siblings who were in trouble with their parents, looking down as if accepting the pending punishment. Her presence amongst them, to both her blessing and dismay, was one of chance. She was neither the most wealthy nor the most important character; she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and, from what she could pick up from the snippets of conversations that reached her through the burlap over her head, in the company of the wrong people.

The desolate miasma of the sewer had grown on Charlotte after walking for a few minutes. Her feet felt damp with murky water, legs splashed with the tiny droplets resulting from the heavy footsteps of five or six men through the shallow pools. She felt the anticipation of the final destination through her entire body. She was by no means stupid – while she had never been a prodigy in her childhood, she could read situations and emotions like a trained professional, and the unspoken atmosphere of fear that laced these fully capable men did not go unnoticed. There was something at the end of this sewer, something much more frightening than a few street thugs.

When the men who held her arms stopped walking, she found herself startled, in her sightless state, by her sudden halt. She couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary, but she could pick up the faintest hum of a computer and the slow yet heavy footsteps of someone or something. Fully aware that she would be powerless in a physical fight, a thousand scenarios flew through her mind. As the unnamed figure mounted the steps that were in front of her and her escorts, Charlotte glanced down at her feet, the only things she could see through the muffling dark of the sack around her head. The slightest glow of reflected light upon the ground would have rendered her spell-bound under any other situations, but she found herself unable to appreciate the sight, especially once the heavier footsteps came to a full stop. She could hear somebody breathing; the breaths stood out from the other people's, sounding warped and distorted in some unfamiliar way.

Unwarned, the burlap sack was pulled from her head, and she blinked her eyes to adjust to the light. This light, just bursting forth from the gentle hum of an illuminating computer, splashed its glow through the cracks in the ground, across her own body, and across the body of the one who stood in front of her. Charlotte decided that the matter was stranger than she had at first anticipated, and wondered to herself if she would be hit again if she looked up to meet the eyes of whoever stood before her. (The last time that she had looked one of the men in the eye, she had been struck across the face, to the apparent amusement of the thugs with the inflated egos who had held her so tightly before.)

Despite her unwillingness to look up, she could see the bottom fraction of the figure before her, making out thick boots, a military jacket, and impossibly built legs.

"I imagine," spoke the voice of a demon and a lawyer, "that having espoused the idea that you would be killed, you have decided to cast off any obligations laid upon yourself regarding respect."

Charlotte's eyes remained unwavering, as she was certain that he was not speaking to her. After the beating sustained at the hands of the men who stood around her, she felt frozen in whatever place she was put in. Her eyes flickered to her badly bruised wrists, to her torn nail, to the cobblestone crumbs that had been ground painfully into her arms and legs, and she knew that her cause was undoubtedly been lost. Her cause, of course, was to live; she had no hidden agenda or connection to the high-ups of the world, despite what these people seemed to believe.

A sudden shattering blow landed upon her side, and she found herself thrown across the unknown room, her head hitting something hard in the process. A surprised shriek escaped her lips despite herself, and she could do nothing but curl up on her side to hug her knees to her chest and cry silent tears.

"You have been beaten before this today," the voice states, and she knows that this time she is not to reply. A large hand grabs her by the arm and pulls her up, and she looks into his eyes for half a second before squeezing hers tightly shut in terror. A cold pair of blue-black eyes had met her gaze with terrifying suspicion. She opened her eyes again, and found herself staring with naïve, childlike curiosity at the metal mask that bound the powerful man's head in an unbreakable grasp. His eyes skimmed over her body, analyzing for something more than his own perversion. She herself took a moment to examine his figure, impossibly large forearms and a stomach built like a titanium wall meeting her prying eyes. He looked to be almost seven feet tall, his frightening body covered with a long military coat fringed with cropped wool.

"Which of you struck the woman?" he asked coldly and sternly, in reply to the piercing silence that had met his first statement regarding the beatings.

Before an answer could be given, the room echoed with a scream that was not hers. A scream of bloodcurdling pain, the sound of something being snuffed out and shattered like glass, soon accompanied by a thud. Looking up, Charlotte saw one of her escorts slumped to the ground in pain, scream quickly cut off as he fell. Her eyes widened, hands brought to her mouth in shock as she realized that she had witnessed a death. The man's neck was twisted unnaturally to the side, jaw slack, eyes stretched wide open. His skin was pulled taught with his exaggerated expression, his eyes protruding from his head and his face tinged a dull red.

"Get rid of him," the killer muttered, "and wait for my permission to die. You will report back and wait."

When Charlotte, after being beaten against moldy walls and struck by professional hands, struggled to comprehend the acceptance of death by the hands of the man before her, she did not at first recognize the looks on the men's faces which had changed so drastically in such a short amount of time. Before worried and longing for approval, they now bore the expressions of men who were given orders to dig their own graves before getting shot. Once holding a sliver of hope, these men were now hopeless, lifeless. They were accepting their fate.

The huge man before Charlotte shoved her back to the ground before she could bother to protest. Carried away by two younger men who had not been amongst her escorts, and therefore were not yet sentenced to die, his satanic command was the last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness.


	2. Chapter 1

**Warnings for this chapter: **This chapter is rated **T **for non-graphic violence.

**Warnings for this story: **This story is rated **M **for graphic torture and violence, graphic non-consensual and consensual sex acts, as well as profane language.

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**Thank you for the kind feedback on the prologue! I have decided to continue writing from the third person, at least for now, because it allows me to go into a bit more detail regarding the setting.**

**Also, I thought that it might be good to clarify this a bit: Charlotte assumes that Bane is a stupid street thug who is just after money, and thinks that if she says "hey, I know what you're playing at, you can have your money and we can all go home" then it will all end. I thought that it might be good to clarify that, as it strikes me as a bit hard to follow. If you have any other questions, be sure to let me know.**

**Thanks, and please enjoy chapter 1! **

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Drawing a breath, pressing her hand against her throbbing heart, and feeling blindly at the tight mask obscuring her vision and rendering her sightless, Charlotte began slowly attempting to move different parts of her body, listening every minute for the chilling footsteps of the man whose face was branded into her mind's eye. She was beseeching, no doubt, to be spared another beating, despite the uncomfortable gag in her mouth rendering her unable to articulate these pleas.

_What am I to be pitied for, though?_

She knew that she was anything but alone in her predicament; the manner in which the masked man had slaughtered his own subordinates like pigs without hesitation made it quite clear that these deaths were not out of the ordinary. When she lay upon the ground, still looking bewildered and terrified after the senseless brutalities, every faint sound was the sound of _him _approaching. She was driven mad with terror, sense of sight cut off and tormenting her vulnerability, the knowledge that death's swift and cruel blow could pounce upon her in a heartbeat a tapping earwig running along her brain. _Tap, tap, tap_, it went, as it reminded her. _Tug, tug, tug_, it went, as it pulled and manipulated her thoughts.

The whisper of an insect humming past her ear elicited a violent lurch from Charlotte, and she found herself disgusted with the way she now shuddered and flinched like a battered wife at the slightest of movements. The paranoia was doing no favours for her, instead only prolonging her agony and harshening the time she spent blind and alone in the freezing place that smelled like salt.

A soft touch upon her shoulder caused her to flinch dramatically, though she breathed more freely when all that came of the touch was the removal of the wadded cloth from her mouth. She found herself coughing drily as it was removed, noticing the dryness of her mouth as her tongue was freed from its previous position shoved uncomfortably against the roof of her mouth.

"Who are you?" Charlotte asked, addressing the entity who now stood above her, having arrived so silently into the room while the insects made so much noise. "If you let me go now, I will not breathe a word of it-"

"You shan't breathe a word of it regardless," replied the voice. "I warn you that our acquaintance may, upon your awakening, take a sour turn if you continue with this pointless drivel. I do hope that this will not become a commonplace." His words were poisonous, threat barely concealed, his voice more frightening than his touch, garbled demonic tongues meshing together in a song under the guise of English.

"The men you killed," Charlotte rasped, voice barely above a whisper and cracked with dehydration, "why did you kill them? Did they suffer?"

"They? They suffered just as much as they needed to." And that was that. When the criminals died just days before, they left no legacy of masterworks or meaningful memories. In fact, the man with the mask seemed to bear no memory of the subordinates at all, brushing off the question of _why _without a second thought. His voice held no regret, of this Charlotte could tell even through the distortion.

A minute of silence passed with no words exchanged between the two; Charlotte could not hear the breathing or shifting of the man with the mask, the silence nearly deafening. Unsure of whether the opportunity to converse with her captor would arise again, Charlotte considered asking him why she had been taken. The fear that had racked her body over the days that she had spent in the room had eventually grown into a numb throbbing, her thoughts over the last 48 hours having covered everything there was to fear about the subordinate men, the humming computers and the man with the metal mask.

"Is there a reason," Charlotte began, choosing her words carefully, "that I have been taken here? I do not mean to offend, but if I have wronged you somehow, it was completely accidental."

"If a man can be known by nothing else, then he may be known by his companions. One must be mindful of the company one keeps."

Charlotte had overheard similar snippets when she had first been grabbed, talk of Stryver and Daggett and a number of congressmen that she'd never really become involved with. Her loose blood relationship with Roland Daggett alluded to her appeal to her captors; he was a businessman, one who Charlotte regretted to note was easily corrupt, and a friend of Stryver's at that. He was an affluent child at heart, and while she enjoyed conversing with him, she was painfully aware that he was not above paying for the services of a criminal, a government, a terrorist.

In fact, the more she thought about the situation, the more it made sense. Her cousin had spoken recently to her about his displeasure regarding his place in Wayne Enterprises, and his longing, his desperation, to seize control. The man who seemed omnipresent, the man who gave permission for humans to die – she could see his appeal to a man like Daggett. They were second cousins, and were by no means the closest of friends, but they met every few weeks for drinks and they certainly cared deeply for each other.

"Is it Daggett?" she asked quietly, wondering if she would soon regret her mention of his name.

The man laughed softly to himself. "Clever girl. If he has extra incentive, he will certainly do what he has promised. I don't know if I'd be so bold as to say that wit runs in your family, considering his desperate attempts to gain the upper hand in our... _relationship_. I suppose you could say that I've grown tired of his little schoolyard games, and I thought I might pay his family a visit."

Charlotte couldn't help but to be surprised at the open way that the man spoke to her. She had expected a vague answer at best, perhaps no answer at all, yet he had given her a fairly detailed explanation of his illegal relations with her corrupt businessman of a cousin. _A mistake?_

"You tell me all of this, for which I will say I'm thankful, but I don't understand why you would bother to take me here and give me information. If you need me to help you in some way, which I'm certain you do, I cannot imagine that informing me of your ill intentions toward my family is beneficial.

"In fact, none of this really makes sense at all. To be frank with you, my attempts at dissecting your intentions with me have not been fruitful, and – now, I really hope I do not offend you in my expression of confusion – it doesn't seem like any of this can come together in any way."

Charlotte struggled to maintain her usual all-business, fluid method of speech while she was loosely handcuffed to a pole of some sorts and blinded by cheap black cloth, but she maintained it nonetheless. Regardless of the possibly painful repercussions of her honesty, it was textbook that taking the power away from the antagonist in any situation would rob them of much advantage. Calling this admittedly intimidating man out on his seemingly senseless plan would give her a crack in the firmly locked window of opportunity that had finally presented itself.

Strongly opposed to letting anybody walk all over her, Charlotte pushed aside the "flight" adrenaline pumping through her body in an attempt to replace it with "fight" before it was too late. No puzzle was unsolvable.

"Well? Am I close?" she added, confidence growing as she spoke. The man was likely a street thug who wanted to blackmail her cousin for some money, and now that the element of surprise was gone, she felt like she _just might _have a chance at escape. She would offer him his money, and he would be on his merry way before arrest.

The laughter that she got in response made her stomach fall, despite her attempts at turning the tables and faux-relaxed behaviour that she displayed for the masked man. She was no longer a force to be reckoned with, she was a vulnerable little girl in her own mind and she had blown her chance. The window of opportunity had been curtained shut, and she _still _didn't understand the situation.

"I can't help but laugh at your little game of dress-up; while it may amuse me, you will find that I do not take well-"

He paused, and Charlotte felt a strong, earth-shattering blow to her stomach, eliciting a pained wail along with the cracking of both her resolve and at least a single rib.

"-to games. People are easily broken, and the more you mock my intellect, the more severe your punishment must be."

Charlotte choked out a gasp, finding herself racked with sobs of pain with every breath she took. Another blow hit her in the same place, and she shrieked louder than she had ever thought possible. The pain was stabbing, hitting her entire body in cruel, harsh waves, tears dampening her mask and pooling stickily in the corners of her eyes. She felt as if she was being drowned in cold sweat, as if her entire body was betraying her and malfunctioning without any chance of revival.

"I had considered being kind and allowing you some water and nourishment, but I do not feel that you have earned it. Speak to me in a day, feasibly with more respect, and you may be granted an inkling of respect in return."

Just as swiftly as he had entered, the man was gone.


	3. Chapter 2 Part 1

**Warnings for this chapter: **This chapter is rated **T **for hints of violence and the beginnings of stockholm syndrome.

**Warnings for this story: **This story is rated **M **for graphic torture and violence, graphic non-consensual and consensual sex acts, as well as profane language.

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**The feedback that you've been giving me has really motivated me to write a bit more quickly, and I thought I might publish two shorter chapters instead of one long chapter for this segment of the story, hence the title being "chapter 2 (part 1)".**

**My research of stockholm syndrome for this chapter has been really interesting, and I am trying to portray it as realistically as possible. Unlike it is sometimes shown in works of fiction, it is not a sudden affinity for one's captor and abuser – in fact, according to my readings, it starts off as small inklings of happiness given to someone when their captor provides them with something nice, be it food, water, or a breath of fresh air.**

**That was a long author's note. If you have any questions regarding stockholm syndrome, feel free to ask me for some articles that might be insightful. All this aside, please enjoy the first part of chapter 2!**

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At first – long before present date indeed – Charlotte had been much occupied with a single question; what motivation would provoke a man to take captive a young businesswoman if not economic? She had found herself coming to many different and curious conclusions, and had decided in time that his ramblings of illegal services for her cousin most likely held weight. A terrorist, she had decided, or perhaps a mercenary, the man with the mask was not the street thug which she had originally classified him as.

She was crushed and even humiliated at her body's swift and brutal submission to its hunger. While her resolve had been fairly strong for the first two days, it had now been at least three and a half, and she found herself slipping in and out of consciousness through meaningless days and nights spent blinded, bound and gagged in a freezing cold room upon a dirty stone floor.

For a long while, for some hours, she was haunted by the idea that her submission to this man would grant her with sustenance, though she was thoroughly adamant in her refusal to negotiate or show lenience to terrorists. However, much to her dismay, now that it had been nearly four days without so much as a bite to eat, her tongue beginning to feel like sand and her head pounding with lack of iron, she found herself almost _hoping_ that the man with the mask would return as swiftly as possible to bring her food and drink.

When she finally heard the sounds of heavy boots against the stone floor, this time making no attempt to stay silent, she felt sickened at the way her heart lurched with hope. She bit down hard upon her makeshift gag, only letting her teeth unclench when strong hands gently pried the cloth from her quivering jaws.

"Please."

The tone of desperation in her wavering voice would have bothered Charlotte at a time, though she hardly noticed it now that she felt death's teasing embrace so close to ensnaring her nearly broken body. While one of her ribs was badly bruised, she was certain that the other was chipped in some way, the pain radiating from her chest a cruel reminder of her defiance.

"Please what?" replied the voice, monotone yet lighthearted, unfazed by her torment and seemingly approving of her newfound compliance.

"I need something to eat, maybe some water, I beg of you-"

Something small, cool and moist was held up against her lips, just close enough for her to feel. She parted her mouth to take a tentative bite, but it was pulled back before she could taste it.

"If I permit you to eat some food, will you behave throughout the rest of the day?" asked the man slowly. His tone of voice was slightly mocking, juxtaposing the deadly threat thinly veiled in his words. The scent of what Charlotte assumed was a strawberry felt so close that she could taste it.

"Yes, I will, just please let me eat," she choked, leaning forwards in a failed attempt to find the man's hand. Her cloth blindfold was untied, and she blinked uncomfortably in the dim light, eyes quickly adjusting to fall upon the man who knelt down beside the place where she lay. From this angle, a part of his vast stomach was exposed, his impossibly sturdy abdomen built in a way that would not be seen on a bodybuilder or another kind of athlete. In his hand was a strawberry, a medium sized bowl containing more of the red fruits sitting on the ground beside him.

"Please," she repeated.

The man pulled Charlotte towards himself by her waist, moving her so that she lay sideways across his lap, head resting upon his left arm, hands bound behind her, legs tied at the joints, long hair matted and unclean against her damp forehead. Her eyes, narrow and grey, were pleading as they looked into the apparent terrorist's, shutting in silent relief as he reached the strawberry up to her parted lips, allowing her to take a bite.

"You should not think so unceremoniously that I am inherently cruel," said the man, his tone of voice smooth and calm. "You go on, trembling all over from some sort of a wild hysterical fear, a fear in which there is no element of thanks for the lenience I may show for you."

"Are you, in fact," he continued as he touched another berry to Charlotte's cracked and pale lips, "afraid of me?"

Charlotte nodded silently, tiredly, up at the man, breathing out heavily through her nose in rapturous relief as her stomach was slowly filled with fruit, mouth slowly moistened by the natural juices.

"Through your insolence and misbehavior, you have not had reason to be granted my benevolence. You see, I have many a quarrel with your cousin – he knows not how to behave for me, much like you yourself. And if you weren't a fool, you would understand the need for me to have those under me – such as you – behave _correctly_, especially at such a dire time, rather than hindering my business with _ever so important men _such as Daggett in their rebellious behaviour."

The man's voice stayed even as he presented his miniature soliloquy to Charlotte, large hands stroking her hair in a comforting manner and holding berries to her eager mouth.

Despite herself, she could not help but feel a warped sense of gratitude to this masked man, though she was quickly lurched away from any such feelings when she shifted slightly in his arms and felt the pulsating pain of her ribs flood her body. She didn't feel any sort of kindness for this inherently evil man who wore the mask. In fact such a thing would be an incredulous thought if Charlotte had ever had one; the slight, stirring feeling of gratitude that had lasted a second at most was easily one induced by his admittedly clever attempts to make her feel that he was showing her kindness.

Even in her dazed and weak state, Charlotte could see how anyone might have these slight feelings of gratitude or happiness for a person who fed them when they were starving or comforted them when they were terrified, despite the past events that may have occurred between them. They were, without a doubt, fleeting, and just as soon as they had intruded her mind, they were dismissed, and Charlotte thought clearly again. Her stomach still rumbled uncomfortably, but she was no longer starved to the inch of her life, and thus her vision no longer obscured by the cruel tactics of a social engineer.

Charlotte wiggled sideways in an attempt to be released from the masked man's grasp, his delicate touch repulsive upon her skin. Raising his eyebrows, he dropped her back onto the ground, standing up to his full height to tower above her, no longer kind and comforting in his mannerisms.

"Perhaps," he said over his shoulder, "you should take note that you are not fully knowledgable of this situation, and that a foolish girl such as yourself should be mindful of getting herself into situations from which she cannot get herself _out. _I am certain that you will find our relationship _much _more pleasurable if you try not to anger he who holds your life in his hands. You should be thankful that I do not punish you more severely for your reoccurring insolence."

Charlotte was disgusted by his words, disgusted by his voice, and most of all, disgusted by herself and the way she had allowed herself, if only for a moment, to be tricked into a false sense of blissful security. He spoke of revolution and murdered without remorse; if history had taught the woman anything at all, it had been that such a combination never ended pleasantly. The man noticed her facial expression, laughing loudly, the sound garbled and horrific, betraying any guise of kindness or mercy that he may have worn at any point in time.

"Who _are _you?" Charlotte asked, wincing as her weight was accidentally shifted to her chest, ears ringing with the pain of unhealed injuries.

"I am Bane," said the man. "I am Gotham's reckoning."


	4. Chapter 2 Part 2

**Warnings for this chapter: **This chapter is rated **T **for hints of violence and the beginnings of stockholm syndrome.

**Warnings for this story: **This story is rated **M **for graphic torture and violence, graphic non-consensual and consensual sex acts, as well as profane language.

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**I apologize for the slow updates, I'll try to post chapters more frequently starting now. The story is about to get a little bit less boring and a little bit "action"-y, which I'm excited to write. I hope you enjoy the chapter!**

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For several seconds she gazed with startled eyes at the unfamiliar-looking faces, and she was bewildered at what they seemed to be capable of and what they were to do.

Charlotte had been left alone for a little while, finding her mind racing with thoughts of hunger and broken bones and a man named Bane while she awaited her next encounter. To her surprise, the next time that the door to the room in which she was kept creaked open, the figure in the doorway was not that of anyone she knew; the man who stood in the doorway was of average build, greasy hair flopping upon narrow shoulders, eyes narrow and grey and weathered with age. At the same instant she was startled when another man entered the room after the first, this one younger and taller with a head of smooth blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.

Charlotte perceived that the matter was taking a negative turn from the moment that the men entered the room. The older placed a brown leather messenger bag upon the ground, crouching to undo the straps and expose the contents; whilst the man went about spreading unseen tools onto the dirty ground, the blonde man whose mouth seemed stuck in a permanent smirk approached her at a slow pace. The sounds of leather boots echoing about the room encouraged Charlotte to wriggle into a sitting position, her eyes finally not shrouded and able to observe the situation.

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice quieter than it had been just a day before.

The blonde man shook his head, smiling to himself and reaching back to be handed something unseen from the other. He flicked invisible dust off of his jacket, and with a deep sigh reached to circle Charlotte's wrist in his own gloved hand. She thought not to struggle like she may have in another time, the dizzying surges of hunger and blackened bruises a leash and collar around her neck. Despite her meek and downcast eyes not meeting those of the man who held her, she still found herself flinching at the sound of something clicking mechanically and the feeling of cool metal against her wrists.

She was being handcuffed, an action that she decided she would not meet with rebellion; Bane's actions were peremptory even when passed through subordinates, and her pride was not so warranted that she would allow it to cause her physical harm for a second time. Her compliance would likely please him – she was not naive enough to conclude that this would somehow save her from further pain, but she could not help but hope that her malevolent captor would decide that punishment was unnecessary when in response to obedience.

The blonde man, to Charlotte's slight surprise, said nothing to her as he gently pulled her into an upright position and led her to walk towards the doorway by the thin chains that connected her handcuffs together. Her legs were numb and felt fuzzy, and she struggled to stay upright as she followed closely behind. She took one last look over her shoulder as she left the room, noticing nothing exceptional whatsoever, despite the new perspective. The older man was still crouched on the floor and fiddling with the unknown contents of the brown messenger bag, a matter which Charlotte decided she would not concern herself with in the slightest.

"You know you're not just here by chance, right?"

It took Charlotte a few seconds to realize that the man's comment was directed at her.

"What do you mean?" she replied softly. "I know why I'm here."

The man laughed softly, sadly, and shook his head. "No, you don't understand. Something is coming, something that you don't yet understand. This isn't just about money, or even revenge."

Charlotte wasn't sure exactly what it was that the man was implying. "I'm here because of Daggett," she said carefully. "Bane already told me-"

"Bane?" the man laughed, surprised. "While all that is said of him is rumour, if one thing is certain, it is that the words he speaks to citizens of this city are not the most truthful."

A second or two after the echoes of the man's words had died away amongst the stone and metal, Charlotte began to process what she had just learned.

"I don't understand. What has he ever done to the citizens of Gotham? I'd never heard of him until now."

The blonde man shook his head. "He has done nothing yet, nothing of which they know. If I am to speak another word of this to you, I am certain that there will be repercussions, but I will tell you one last thing out of kindness to you. There is a storm coming, and when it hits, I'd be prepared if I were you."

The very first day after Charlotte's capture had been issued by the subordinates of the criminal Bane, she had assumed that he was a common criminal whose motivation for his crime was strictly monetary. In spite of all such measures the man, who only days ago had fed her and feigned mercy, took to hide his true intentions, Charlotte quickly learned that his motivation was deeper. A criminal of whose services her corrupt cousin had enlisted for a reason unknown to her, perhaps? She had reached the conclusion that she was a hostage, further enticement for Daggett to pay Bane swiftly for his services, whatever said services may be.

The blonde man's uniform was tattered, he looked famished, worn-out and reduced to a fraction of his original strength, but he nevertheless sounded truthful. He could not yet be twenty-five, and his tone was that of extensive fear. His warning of a metaphorical storm would not entice such reactions if all that the situation regarded was a businessman and his unpaid debts. Charlotte had thought about her situation reluctantly, though rationally, and then had come to a reasonable conclusion. However, she was not so certain of her conclusion at all.

The subordinate here, one who seemed of higher rank than those who had first brought her to her holding cell, seemed deeply troubled over something, the emotion on his face something much harsher than fear. With greater knowledge of Bane, perhaps, came greater terror? The sympathetic, fearful expression on his face told the woman that this man held knowledge of an event to come, something that affected not just Daggett, but somehow him instead. Perhaps the citizens of Gotham as well, which she was reluctant to believe yet sure he had implied.

"How much longer must we walk?" Charlotte asked, attempting to initiate further conversation with the man who knew so much more than she.

"Not long. We are close."

"Where are you taking me?"

The man avoided her eyes, keeping his own gazing steadily at the ground/

"Excuse me, sir?"

He sighed quietly. "Yes?"

"Will you please tell me where we are going?"

"I am not at liberty to say, please do not think about it. Pretend that you are somewhere else."

They walked onwards in silence. In very few words Charlotte had come to terms with him, acquiring disturbing snippets of information that she had no desire to believe. In minutes, they were at an opening in the sewer wall, through which they turned and walked.

In this new room there were computers, many men and a television stuck on static. It smelled of sweat and dirt. On reaching this room after her short conversation with the man, Charlotte had found herself questioning the part she played in Bane's captivity. However, she was not stupid, and knew that her asking of the question would result in the kind blonde man's death, and thus kept her gaze set steadily at her feet. She felt her handcuffs removed, and couldn't help but feel confused as to who she had had them put on in the first place. While she was not unhealthy, she could not fight off a man, let alone one with the training of these.

"I brought her to you, sir," said the man, his statement clearly not directed at any of the men who were in sight.

As if out of nowhere, Bane was suddenly _there_, his overpowering and intimidating presence eliminating Charlotte's last shred of equanimity and causing her to stumble backwards in fear. Her arm was quickly grabbed by her escort, whose grip was much harder than she would have expected. He was putting on a show of obedience for Bane – this fully capable man – as if he were a dog before his master.

"How knowledgable are you of the daily crises of a stock broker, Charlotte?" asked Bane, his voice sounding less human than it had before. While his voice had still frightened her, she had been alone with him, and his attempts at bringing about obedience from her without the use of strong violence were laced with soft words and strawberries. She did not know why he had not harmed her irrevocably yet, and did not care to ask, but it was clear that his apparent merciful acts were painfully false.

"I didn't work with stocks, I can't say I'm knowledgable at all," she replied shakily, confused by the question.

"Well then, you should be excited and thankful for the learning opportunity! You're about to witness firsthand what happens when they get significantly more severe."


End file.
